Good

“Good” by C.P. Taylor, presented by PTP/NYC (Potomac Theatre Project) as part of their 30th Anniversary Summer Repertory Season, is sneaky and thought provoking. Written in 1981, the play opens in Frankfurt, Germany in 1933, and explores how a “good” man goes bad – Nazi, S.S. Officer bad.

When the play opens, Professor John Halder (Michael Kaye), is a writer and professor of literature at the University, and his best and only friend is a Jewish analyst named Maurice (Tim Spears). The two of them discuss with absolute certainty that the anti-Jew “racialist policy” of the Nazis will certainly blow over soon. It is a mere expediency by politicians to get the attention and votes of the public and it can’t and won’t stand. Maurice is terrified by it, Halder is distracted and dismissive. It’s too absurd to give serious attention to.

Halder actually has a lot of problems that he wants his friend to focus on that he thinks are much more important and timely. His blind mother is sinking into dementia, has just come out of a coma in a hospital in Hamburg, his wife seems to be incapable of taking care of their 3 children or the house, and he has this little problem with impotence. To top it all off, he has written a novel about euthanasia that has come to the attention of the Fuhrer who thinks it’s an important work and wants his input on a secret project. It’s not a surprise that he has developed the coping mechanism of hearing music in his head that is so present to him, it removes him from the many emotionally fraught moments in his life.

The self-obsessed jumble in Halder’s head is mirrored in the non-linear action of the play that has all the characters on stage at all times, and the action jumping back and forth in time and place. The audience knows going in what the premise is and we are willing to work for the payoff. We want to understand how a nation of Nazis happened and how we’re different. Hitler and the Nazis are the biggest boogeymen in modern history and this deep into an election year where an unthinkable candidate has been likened to the leader ad nauseum, we want to know – are we followers?

We watch uncomfortably as we’re fed the familiar tropes of the spineless, impotent man. There’s a whiff of possible underlying perversity thrown in but quickly dismissed. There’s the vague threat issued third hand by Halder’s wife that her father says he “might” lose his job if he doesn’t join the Nazi party. But there’s never a confrontation, or an internal struggle expressed that allows us to comfortably say “THAT! That’s where I’d draw the line.” It’s not that the actors aren’t giving us finely drawn portraits of nuanced characters, they are. Michael Kaye as Halder and Tim Spears as Maurice draw us in immediately and we believe them and their choices. Although I was squirming in my seat, waiting for a big dramatic moment that didn’t come, I found myself admiring Halder’s nimble intellectual footwork in justifying book burning while despising his cowardice towards helping Maurice and his family get to Switzerland.

In the end, I walked out of the theater dissatisfied. I had the nagging feeling that I hadn’t gotten what I came in looking for. Until it struck me that I had come in looking for easy reassurances that it couldn’t happen to me and it couldn’t happen here. The two bedrock assumptions of my life as an American born 8 years after WWII ended. And the two assumptions that are as perilously close to being threatened as they have been since I’ve been alive. In the final analysis, that’s the subtle genius of this play, and why I applaud the PTP/NYC for including it in this, their 30th Anniversary Season. You may agree with me or not. But you will certainly be thinking about it long after you leave the theater, and that, to me, is a big win.

About The Author

Donna Herman is a native New Yorker and a self-confessed theater addict. It all started in her childhood, which was spent on movie and television sets and in dark empty theaters while her mother, an actress, and her father, a make-up artist and playwright/screenwriter, worked. She knew she wanted to be an actress at 4 years old while on location with her father who was working on the movie “West Side Story.” They were filming the “Officer Krupke” number on the street and Donna was inside the police barricades being helpful and pressing the lever on the coffee urn for the crew. Meanwhile, the kids from the neighborhood were pressed against the sawhorses looking in. She knew then she always wanted to be on the inside. But it wasn’t until her 8th birthday when she saw her first Broadway show, “My Fair Lady,” that she fell prey to her addiction.
Donna went on to act throughout her school career and attended Boston University’s School of Fine Arts Theater Program where she studied Acting and Directing. After graduation, she returned to NYC and began the life of a struggling actress. She was fortunate enough to originate the role of Chang in John Jesurun’s downtown cult serial classic play “Chang In A Void Moon” which performed a new episode at The Pyramid Club on Avenue A every Monday night for almost a year in the 80’s. Many downtown notables were in the cast including Steve Buscemi, Black-Eyed Susan, David Cale, Greg Mehrten, and Anna Kohler.
While pursuing acting, Donna made money by working in recording studios and eventually got hired full time to manage Spyro Gyra’s new recording studio when Julian Lennon was recording his first album there. From there she became the Production Coordinator on the film of his concert tour for his production company. This led her to a job with the award winning audio post production facility where she stayed for 12 years and was the Controller. From there she went to Charlex, Inc. an award winning special effects and design company for the advertising industry, where she was the CFO and stayed for 17 years.
But her love for the theater has never waned and living in New York, she has always been able to indulge it. She has even been called to revise her role as Chang occasionally over the years, the latest for episodes 59 to 61 in 2015. She is now looking to get back to a more creative life and reviewing theater and designing jewelry.